If the intention of this opera is to scare the bejesus out of you, it succeeds.
Watching Mark-André Dalbavie and Guillaume Métayer’s 2024 opera, The Melancholy of Resistance, a futuristic tale of a city succumbing to the forces of evil, was depressing enough.
A circus of thugs rolls into town in a lorry, displaying an attraction. The carcass of an enormous whale. They are led by a mysterious three-eyed Prince, (never seen), who is set on taking over control of the city and terrorising the inhabitants.
It was meant as a fantastic cautionary tale, originally crafted by Hungarian novelist László Krasnahorkai in 1989 pre the fall of the Berlin Wall. H.G Wells’ 1984, Kurt Weill’s The Rise and Fall of Mahagonny, that sort of prescient gloom-mongering. Dystopian. Don’t worry, could never happen here.
But then the curtain fell, and I paid attention to the insistent pinging of my Inbox. A purblind Prince – sorry, President – Donald Trump had rumbled into the Ukraine conflict peddling whale-sized whoppers.
That Ukraine had started the war. Volodymyr Zelensky’s popularity had plunged to 4% (57%, actually) and he was undemocratic, having postponed an election due in 2024. As it happens, with the consent of all parties in the Ukraine parliament. Britain did the same in WWII. A pod of whopper whales.
As we are only in ACT I of the “peace process” I shall end my critique of that opera here. Will it turn out to be “buffa” or “verismo”? Maybe a plot twist by Act III. I suggest an amicable resolution thrashed out in a luxury villa on the rebuilt Gaza Riviera.
For President Zelensky, the melancholy of resistance has become only too real.
Berlin Staatsoper is a house of innovation. Even for them, The Melancholy of Resistance leads the presentation of contemporary opera onto new ground. Audiences have become familiar with projected images as backdrops to a set. They can be effective, and they’re cheap. Important in these art cash-strapped days.
Sometimes they are spectacular, Wexford Festival’s 2017 Risurezzione, when lovers stroll through a projected, undulating poppy field worked. Tears all round.
Monte Carlo’s 2024 Giulio Cesare in Egitto, when fighter planes constantly strafed Giulio’s battle cruiser not so much. Tolomeo was not known as an aviation pioneer.
The Melancholy of Resistance does not use film as a bolt-on, afterthought effect. Rather, it is a film opera. Staging is at three levels. Front stage sparely furnished, a background screen and a complete film set located behind the screen. Some of the action takes place in small rooms, part of the film set, which are then projected on screen. Total intimacy.
And, as the opera progresses strict partitioning breaks down and the audience can see cameras being wheeled on dollies, showing the front of stage action from a different perspective.
Personally, I found lifting the veil of mystery, showing the cameras, was a bridge too far. I have a stupendous engineer who looks after my aging Jaguar (25 this year) with ferocious care but insists on explaining its entrails at length before surrendering the keys when I pick it up. I just want to know if it can still hit 150 – on a German autobahn, en route to the Staatsoper! Don’t explain or show how it’s done.
Hungarian director, David Marton collaborated closely with Guillaume Métayer (librettist) and the pair quickly realised that the wealth of detail in the original novel was vital to shaping a meaningful libretto. That would have to be reflected in the onstage portrayal. The camera would never miss a detail.
Marton’s own words: “And this world of miniatures – or rather, microscopic observations – is something that I find very interesting for opera because opera is condemned to be bombastic, always. Everything is big: the size of the room, the size of the orchestra, the sound, and the entire apparatus – which I found a nice contrast to these small observations.”
Here we were close-up and personal. Aspects of the plot will ring bells for harassed urban Britons. A remote town, somewhere in Europe, is in trouble. Overfilled commuter trains disappear, roots of toppled poplar trees tower in the sky, garbage piles up, street lights fail.
A widow, Rosi Pflaum, who has been harassed in a train loo, scuttles home to her kitschy apartment – she is a bone china cat person – and shelters there from reality. That scene is the first full use of a camera shot set. And it’s handheld, so there is a sense of immediacy.
Rosi Pflaum was sung by French soprano, Sandrine Piau. She is the only member of the cast with whom I am familiar. Renowned in the world of Baroque music, she has performed with the great maestros of the genre, William Christie, Gustav Leonhardt, René Jacobs …… the list goes on and on.
She played the “ordinary mum” role beautifully and where the score allowed her to use her range, she was stunning. She conveyed that blend of simple sincerity, yet steely determination often found in ‘ordinary’ folk. Seek her out if she happens by a concert near you.
Other members of the cast can be found here. The other standout was countertenor Philippe Jaroussky, who sang the difficult role of Valouchka. He’s a pivotal character and in the Budapest production portrayed as an open-mouthed idiot.
Jaroussky got the balance of the character spot on. Yes, a simple man, but not a simpleton. His scenes interacting with Piau, his estranged mother were beautifully tender. And that bell-like countertenor. The demonstration of the eclipse was high comedy with a purpose. Bravo!
Front of stage is a music professor, sitting at a grand piano. Georges Esther, who has resigned his job as director of a music school, obsessed with retuning his piano, back to “real” tuning as opposed to “equal temperament”, the norm. He is determined to restore order to the world of sound. An analogy of the crumbling city around him.
His wife, Angèle Esther is a nightmare. He has tossed her out. She is on a campaign – slogan “A well-swept hall, order above all” – to become mayor. Who knows? She may last more than 49 days.
Unless Georges joins her – he is well respected – she is going to move back into their apartment. “I’ll be back for dinner”. No fear! To get rid of the harpy once and for all, he joins her campaign.
The link between the couple from hell is Valouchka, the town postman, village idiot and son of Madame Pflaum. He is the reclusive Georges Esther’s sole remaining contact with the outside world.
Valouchka is a naïf. He wonders at the universe. In the local bar “Le Péfeffer” where he is tolerated by the local drunks, he arranges a demonstration. Three patrons are persuaded to act out the roles of Sun, Earth and Moon. Sun being still and the others revolving, until he demonstrates an eclipse, when all goes dark. Neat riff on the Mechanical’s play in A Midsummer Night’s Dream.
Valouchka’s demonstration is a figurative premonition of the fate that is about to befall the city. The threat of darkness hangs heavy all around.
The long-advertised circus arrives, a mixture of hoodlum performers, the whale and the Prince who never appears. He issues unintelligible diktats from inside a caravan, translated by his Press Officer.
He has a devastating message. The Prince has come to pass judgement. Townsfolk are fascinated by the whale and join the thugs in destroying what remains of their town. The world falls apart. Valouchka is a terrified witness.
Blousy Madame Esther, on the make, takes advantage of the chaos, abolishes the useless police, overrules the citizens, and allies herself with the military, led by a general bedecked in ridiculous medals, with a fake orange tan. OK, I made up the bit about the tan.
Valouchka tries to warn mum of the danger, but she thinks he is havering, and is then forced to watch as he is taken away by men in heavy coats. He joins the movement. For the first time, he has a chance to be an insider.
Madame Pflaum and the music professor with the wonky piano go in search of the boy, but the harmless Pflaum is killed. A victim of the insurrection. The general’s forces prevail. Beside Pflaum’s coffin, Esther cynically hails her as a hero of the “resistance”.
Madame Esther leaves on the arm of the victorious general. Monsieur Esther fails to find Valouchka, who has fled. He returns to tuning his piano.
It is a strange coincidence that almost exactly the same opera appeared under the name of Valeska, from the pen of Hungarian composer Péter Eötvös, staged by Hungarian State Opera Budapest in 2023.
The libretto was so similar that I had to check they did not have a librettist in common. Not unheard of for 18th century librettists to hawk their wares around the town. Nope, Budapest was a joint effort from Keszthelyi Kinga and Metzei Mari. Eötvös is married to Mari.
Budapest did have a more convincing whale and Madame Esther boasted a Dame Edna Everage pink bouffant and furry suitcase, but the ground-breaking use of camera technique at the Staatsoper created a sensation for the audience of sharing an inescapable doom loop with the cast. Berlin beat Budapest handily in the drama stakes.
This opera is not entertaining. Neither is it enjoyable musically. Dalbavie’s score is essentially mood music reflecting the frenetic onstage action. Supported by the plot, not driving it forward. Nothing memorable. That is probably by design.
But the opera is a totally absorbing theatrical experience. If the intention is to scare the bejesus out of you, it succeeds. The two hours twenty minutes whizzed by. Good news is, you can now catch it on Medici TV .
It offers a salutary warning. Not to ignore signs of societal decay around us. I thought of recent disrupted train journeys in Scotland – strikes of course – and the neglected feel of my beloved hometown, Glasgow on my last visit.
Rubbish in motorway underpasses, pothole-ridden roads, street signage green with lichen unreadable. The once proud promenade, Sauchiehall Street, a disintegrating disgrace. No whales in sight. Yet.
Glasgow is not alone in Britain’s town hall misery stakes. Urban decay apart, a report last year fingered 36 councils in England for fraud and misuse of public funds.
This pioneering use of the filmic style is bold. It may attract a new generation of opera goers. I bet it will catch the attention of other directors. After all, the medium has a track record over 200 years of making use of the latest technology in the constant struggle to stuff the competition.The Melancholy of Resistance. How should we respond? “A well swept hall, order above all”. Maybe Angèle Esther is on to something.
(Image: William Minke)